The number came from broadcaster Ben Jacobs earlier this month: up to 96 votes if the 55 UEFA and 41 CONCACAF associations that might plausibly back Montagliani actually do.

The bar to unseat Infantino in a two-horse race at the 77th FIFA Congress on 18 March 2027 is 106, a simple majority of FIFA’s 211 associations, each holding one ballot regardless of size or football history.

That leaves the CONCACAF president needing at least ten votes from confederations that have publicly aligned with the incumbent.

The Canadian in UEFA’s sights

Montagliani, 60, has run CONCACAF since 2016 and sits as a FIFA vice president. He chaired the emergency CONCACAF meeting that called Infantino’s abandoned World Cup privatisation plan an “egregious act of poor governance” and demanded a reckoning with the presidency.

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He has not formally declared. A spokesperson told The Globe and Mail he was unavailable for interview, and Montagliani himself said in June he was “honoured” by succession speculation but focused on his own CONCACAF re-election. Prime Minister Mark Carney publicly praised the Vancouver-based executive as “a credit to Canada, credit to football”.

UEFA has landed on him partly by elimination. Paris Saint-Germain and beIN Sports president Nasser Al-Khelaifi rejected the European approach earlier this month, with a spokesperson telling reporters he has “absolutely no ambition, no intention and no interest” in the FIFA job.

Why 96 is not enough

The wall is Africa and South America. CAF’s 54 votes make up more than a quarter of FIFA’s electorate on their own, and its member federations publicly backed Infantino as the crisis broke this month. CONMEBOL threw its ten votes behind him for a fourth mandate back in April.

Confederations do not decide how their members vote. Each of the 211 associations casts its own secret ballot, and confederation lines routinely fracture at FIFA congresses. But the public positions of CAF and CONMEBOL leave any challenger hunting individual defections inside blocs whose leaderships have locked in with the incumbent.

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CONMEBOL has gone further, rejecting any attempt to remove Infantino outside a vote of all 211 members.

The AFC is the more open front. Its president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa co-signed an open letter with UEFA and CONCACAF on 10 August declaring that football “belongs to no individual” and demanding an independent review of the privatisation plan.

What has to happen by 18 November

To make the ballot at all, Montagliani or any rival must be nominated by at least five FIFA member associations before nominations close on 18 November. On 9 August, FIFA itself warned of a “concerted and ongoing effort” to undermine the president, a signal from inside FIFA that its leadership is bracing for a contest it did not expect a month ago.

Only then does the arithmetic of 106 become live. On present numbers, it is not there.

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